Saturday Mornings With My Girl
by ProDLnEC aka NLcsimiamifanatic
Summary: His Saturday morning were totally different now..ON HAITUS!


_**Saturday Mornings with My Girl**_

_As always, feel free to correct my Spanish! The translations I get off __**Yahoo! Babel Fish **__aren't always correct._

Gone were the days of sleeping late for Eric Delko. It was sunny Saturday morning in Miami. Eric was enjoying the time with his daughter who had turned a year old last week. She was happily babbling away in a language all her own as she stood at the coffee table in front of his lap top, watching Cookie Monster's _C is for Cookie_ video on youtube over and over while he washed the morning's dishes. Eric was amazed how the baby caught on to hitting the 'repeat' button. The young man was surprised to hear a knock on the door. It was only a little after seven-thirty a.m.. No one visited that early in the morning. Eric opened the front door to see Tammy Lewis.

"What are _you_ doing here?" He asked flatly.

Eric had no legal obligation to let Tammy see Nevaeh. And after whole year of being out, she wasn't getting in Nevaeh's life. He doubted Tammy wanted to see the little girl out of sudden maternal affection.

"I spoke to Felicia. Do you still have it? "

"Excuse me?" Eric asked.

He may have known what she were talking about but he was he was still taken back to hear Tammy call Nevaeh an "it."

Tammy rolled her eyes.

"Don't play dumb with me, Eric. You know what I'm talking about, _the kid_. Let me see it. Or did you leave _it_ with your mother?"

"Papi?" Nevaeh called out, looking for her dad when she no longer saw him at the sink.

"Tendre razon alli,bebe," Eric called back to her.

Tammy scoffed.

"It don't even speak English, huh?"

Eric felt anger rise in his chest.

"That's none of your business. Now again I ask _what are you doing here?_ When you signed those papers, _my_ daughter ceased to have any connection to you. And it's my decision whether you see _her _and _that's not happening._ If you don't turn around and leave now, I'll have you arrested."

Just then a diaper-clad Nevaeh came to the doorway leading to the porch, looking for her daddy. With big eyes, she looked at the woman on the outside. She didn't move any further. She wasn't a timid child but unlike her dad's boss and the rest of his co-workers the first time she met them, the woman didn't look very nice. She seemed scary.

"Go back in, baby," he said to the girl. "Daddy'll be right there."

The child obeyed and walked back into the other room.

Without another word, Eric closed the door.

Nevaeh reached her arms to her father when he entered the living room.

"'Ug," she said.

Eric picked up the tiny girl and wrapped his arms around her. "Do you know how much daddy loves you?" he whispered to her.

Nevaeh grinned.

"Pway?" She said, pointing to the wooden clown blocks on the floor.

The breakfast dishes could wait. Eric spent the next hour laying on the carpet on his stomach, building and knocking over towers with his daughter. It lingered in his brain exactly why Tammy came by. He had hoped she forgot his address. Though there was no hope of her ever regaining rights or custody of Nevaeh and it was entirely up to him if she even saw the baby, a pit of fear started to grow in his stomach.

_What's she up to?_

The answer: Tammy Lewis was leaving the country. In a week, she was leaving for Argentina. She had stopped by Eric's apartment when her attorney hadn't returned her call soon enough. Tammy had wanted to "make absolutely sure" she wasn't liable for child support once she left the United States for good. Even without parental rights, in some cases biological parents could still be sued for child support. Eric had this option—but had never once considered it. He had had a long talk with this family about this, all agreed the woman didn't need to be involved.

Papers that Tammy must have slipped under his doorway after he shut it squashed Eric's worry over an hour later.

A letter requesting him to contact his lawyer to certify that he didn't intend to seek financial support.

_No problem._

A hand written note from Tammy in the envelope read:

_Don't have a heart attack._ _I wasn't going to try to take the kid. I was only curious to see if she resembled me at all. Trust me, the __last__ thing I want is to raise __it__. I'm sure when *your daughter* outgrows that "cute" phase, you won't be so attached. _

_Congratulations! She's all yours! Have *fun* for the next eighteen years. _

_Tammy_

_Screw off, bitch,_ He thought.

Another legal notice had a ludicrous request.

Tammy wanted Eric and his family to never tell anyone that Tammy was Nevaeh's mother. Her new, wealthy fiancé didn't know she had ever had a child and she wanted to keep it that way. A judge had turned down her request for an order to compel them to do. Her only other option for this was to get Eric to do so voluntarily.

Which Eric wouldn't do for her. He wasn't about to advertise her identity but he wasn't going to do anything to help her cover up a vain lie she told. Eric had little time to think about Tammy, Nevaeh needed a new diaper and a bath.

"C'mon you," he said scooping her up and blowing a raspberry on her belly. "Let's go take a bubble bath."

Nevaeh shrieked with laughter. She loved her bathes. Daddy didn't care that he often got soaking wet as well.

Later that day the two visited Eric's parents. Nevaeh enjoyed playing in the elder Delkos' backyard where there was swing set. Pavel and Chlorinda had also received the notice about concealing Tammy's identity but by courier. Eric told his father that he would have had no hesitation in having Tammy arrested if she hadn't left his property when she did. But he was relieved he didn't have to; that would have meant more involvement with her.

Both men smiled from the deck hearing Nevaeh giggle as her grandmother pushed her in the swing. Pavel was glad that his grandchild seemed none the worse from the morning visit.

"Tammy know you're a cop, now?" His father asked.

"I don't know," Eric replied thoughtfully. "I never told her but it."

Pavel Delko had always been proud of his son.

How dedicated a father Eric was from the beginning was no surprise to Pavel. Eric was never afraid to show his nurturing side, along with setting boundaries from his child. When Eric had to leave to go to a crime scene while the two were still at his parents' Nevaeh cried, not wanting to leave her father's arms when he gave her a hug and a kiss.

"Daddy will be back," he told her. "You'll be all right. You can play here for a while."

There was nothing Eric more than getting a call-out when he was off. He treasured his time with his daughter. Though he made his goodbyes brief and casual, it still tugged at his heartstrings.

There was no shortage of toys at the elder Delkos' for any of their grandchildren_._ Since Nevaeh regularly spent time at her grandparents' house there was "emergency" diapers and clothes on-hand.

"I'll be back as soon as I can,"Eric told his mother.

This Saturday had what Eric knew to expect but was dreading.

A crime scene involving a child.

Inside a burned out home that was about to demolished, a construction crew had found a deep freeze that duct taped closed and called police. Inside the freezer was the perfectly preserved body of a boy whom the medical examiner estimated to be six months of age. There wasn't any way the unidentified child was an accident or a result of the fire that destroyed the home. He had second and third degree burns covering all the front of his body. The burns were pre-mortem and showed signs of infection. The medical examiner estimated the baby lived for two days before succumbing to his injuries.

The house had been vacant for two months. The landlord believed the identity of the baby in question was the son of the last tenant. When asked where her son was when she were moving, the woman stated she had sent the baby to live with relatives in Texas a month ago. The freezer the baby was found in belonged to the woman. The woman left no forwarding address. The man who owned the home admitted he hadn't been to the basement where the freezer was since the tenant left. The power was left in the home so the appliance was left on. That was why the body went unnoticed.

_Whoever this child was he didn't deserve this, _Eric thought through the day and on the way home. _And whoever did it, deserved to locked away for life._

Nevaeh's tears dried before her dad left the driveway that day. Eric wasn't worried about his parents' ability to keep his child happy but he still having that Saturday afternoon with her.

His mother made up some for his bad day by having his favorite dinner arroz con pollo on the table when he arrived back three hours later. His daughter was amusing in the playpen in the corner of the large kitchen.

"Hey hijo," she smiled. "Would you like to stay for dinner?"

"You know it," Eric grinned.

"Papi!" Nevaeh squealed, hearing her father. She stood up in the playpen and began jumping up and down.

"Ha-ha!" Eric said, picking up his daughter and tossing her in the air causing her to giggle. "What did you do today? Did you have fun?"

"I have some plain chicken, pasta and peas for her," Chlorinda Delko said in reference to Nevaeh's dinner.

Arroz con pollo might be have been Eric's favorite dish, but it wasn't his daughter's. She didn't like the peppers and onions.

"'Ome, dada?" Nevaeh asked soon after dinner. She rubbed her eyes sleepily.

"All right, baby," he said. It was nearly six p.m. and Nevaeh went to bed at 7.

Nevaeh was just about asleep when the two pulled in to the driveway twenty minutes later.

Nearly everyone said it was something he shouldn't be doing because the habit would be hard to break, but Nevaeh was sleeping in papi's bed tonight. But since he wasn't going to bed just yet he laid a sleepy Nevaeh on the couch and covered er with a fleece blanket.

When Eric told people Nevaeh was his everything, he meant it. He did have a social life, though it was a small one. He knew the right woman for him—and Nevaeh, would come along in time. Till then, they were more than fine

_**Translations**_

Tendre razon alli, bebe - I'll be right there, baby.


End file.
